Soccer star Pepe gets gash on face stapled shut on pitch (GIF)

Real Madrid defender Pepe got his face busted open during a Champions League match today. He then got the gash on his face stapled closed right there on the pitch.

The soccer star opened a gash near his left eye during a head-to-head collision with Daniel Braaten of Copenhagen in a Champions League match on Wednesday night. With blood seeping from the cut as he lay on the grass at the Bernabeu, the defender was attended to by a team trainer.

Madrid held a slim 1-0 lead by way of Cristiano Ronaldo at the time of the Pepe-Braaten clash in the 38th minute of the first half. Rather than remove Pepe from the game for stitches, a trainer merely closed the wound closed with what else... a stapler.

Luckily, those eight years at Kinkos U didn't go to waste.

Here's the bloody proof.